


The Man Who Makes People Better

by DameRuth



Series: Flowers [20]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24773950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: Jack loses his memory. The Doctor helps him get it back.[Continuing the Teaspoon imports, original posted 2008.10.01 - 2008.10.04.]
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Series: Flowers [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/14017
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Winter Companions [amnesia challenge](http://community.livejournal.com/wintercompanion/51273.html) over on LJ; this is set late in the Flowers!verse's continuity, just a little bit before "Frost," during one of Jack and the Doctor's little in-between jaunts.

_The best kind of friend is like iron sharpening iron  
From only its claw we may judge of the lion  
Truth hurts but it stands I cannot tell a lie  
That was our wisdom,  
The reptiles and I...  
  
\-- Shriekback, “The Reptiles and I”_  
  
Waking up was strange and uncomfortable. For one thing, the shift between unconsciousness and consciousness was almost painfully abrupt. For another, there was a near-suffocating lack of air in his lungs.  
  
Last and most disconcertingly of all, he was bent almost double across a pair of bony shoulders that dug into his ribs and belly in an irregular, bouncing rhythm.  
  
" _There_ you are,” a faintly scratchy tenor voice exclaimed in response to his first, desperate gasp for air. The voice sounded male, human and amused, but with an underlying tension. “I was wondering when you’d wake up.”  
  
There were upside-down corridors ( _starship_ his undermind whispered to him, without explaining how that conclusion had been reached), moving by rather quickly. He was, he realized, being held in a version of a fireman’s carry. He couldn’t see much of his . . . rescuer? Just a blur of striped brown fabric in front of his nose.  
  
“What happened?” he asked, since it seemed as good a question as any. In fact, all there seemed to be were questions. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten to this position, or what had happened before that, or, even, he realized with a twinge of horror, his own name . . .  
  
A huff of laughter in response to his question. “What happened was, you came down with a bad case of testosterone poisoning and decided you could fix the warp engines on your own — never mind that they were unstable and I was halfway to getting an escape pod in working order. So off you went, and got caught in the nimbus when the bloody drive came online without warning and cycled . . .”  
  
Though still strained, his rescuer’s voice was steady and even, not broken by the deep breaths he’d expect of someone jogging along while supporting another person’s weight. That observation was pushed aside as he processed the content of the words, however.  
  
“Wait, I was caught in a warp nimbus? And I _survived_?” The words "warp nimbus" called up associations along the lines of _liquefied central nervous system, ruptured internal organs_ and other unpleasantness.  
  
“Did I say that?” the tenor voice asked, with good-natured exasperation as the two of them took a tight corner. “Of course you didn’t survive. Took me an extra twenty minutes to disable the drive completely so I could get in there and drag you out. The crew’s all long gone by now, this ship’s about to leave a very large crater in a very large asteroid, and if we’re lucky we’ll reach the TARDIS in time. I suppose I could have just left you where you were and gone picking through the debris afterwards, but that seemed like a lot of extra work . . . Hah!”  
  
The bouncing stopped abruptly, followed by a jingle and the snick of a key in a lock. There was a brief impression of a rectangular blue shape like a large packing crate. The interior behind the double doors was decidedly un-crate-like, however.  
  
He was dumped gently, if unceremoniously, on his back. The metal grating rattled as he hit it, and he found himself staring at an entirely different sort of spacefaring architecture than the corridors they’d been passing through. The lighting was an odd green-orange, the walls patterned with hexagonal rondels. Graceful, coralline support struts wound upwards to a domed ceiling. The air was cool and dry and scented with sandalwood and ozone. It was nothing like any human ship ever built; he knew it without knowing how.  
  
His rescuer slammed doors shut behind them, then hopped over his prone body, heading towards what were clearly the main controls. The first impression was of long, fast-moving limbs, slender and brown-clad. The man in brown might look and sound human, but he didn't move like a human. The difference was subtle but unmistakable.  
  
Still dizzy, he heaved himself into a sitting position . . . just in time to be slammed back against the grating as the floor dropped about three inches before immediately rising another six. Then things stabilized, and he tried rising again. This time he made it to his feet, though there was an odd residual pitch and sway to things. He felt stiff and clumsy as he navigated the ramp towards the control center and the thin man in brown. At the end, he managed to trip over his own feet before catching himself against the protective railing.  
  
His rescuer was largely ignoring him, chattering away to the rescued crew in the escape pod, presumably.  
  
“ . . . Yes, we’re clear, Captain. How are the systems holding?” A crackle of staticky communication that was difficult to make out, in reply. “Good, good . . . Excellent! You seem to have things well under control, I think we’ll let you take it from here.” Another crackle. “Oh, the stuff of legends,” was the amused reply. “Best of luck!”  
  
The deck dropped a mere inch, then the background thrum evened out. He hardly noticed, however, because the thin man in brown swung around the glowing central column of the ship and kissed him.  
  
It was a glorious kiss. The fingertips brushing his cheek were cool, but the lips and tongue that met his were even cooler ( _different core body temperature,_ his undermind informed him). Still, there was no sense of necrophilia -- the kiss was vividly alive, bracing and tingling, with a sweet-sour tinge that roused a fierce reaction in him. After a moment's startled hesitation, he responded in full.  
  
All the same, though, the kiss ended too soon and he found himself staring into deep brown eyes that reflected thread-fine lines of copper and gold in concentric, overlapping circles. Without realizing it, he'd raised one hand to tangle in his rescuer's wild brown hair; with the parting, his hand slid down until it was resting along the line of the other man's jaw, and he could feel an odd, syncopated double rhythm.  
  
_Two hearts,_ he thought. _What looks like a man but has two hearts . . .?_  
  
"What are you?" he asked the vivid brown presence before him. A shiver of premonition ran through him, distant echo of fairy tales and legends . . .  
  
Dark, thick brows described an impressive frown. "What?" the other man asked. "Jack . . .?"  
  
"Is that my name?" he responded, torn between laughing and screaming. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I have no idea who you are, or who I am, or where I am, or what's just happened . . ."  
  
Brown eyes widened. "What, _what_?"  
  
He wished he could answer.  
  
_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

The man in brown stepped backwards, almost glaring with concentration as he studied the man before him. Then he spoke, voice gone low and intense. "Your name, for all practical intents and purposes, is Captain Jack Harkness. I'm the Doctor, and we're in the TARDIS, my ship. We've just managed a daring rescue, complete with last-minute running and peril, as per our usual operating procedure." His voice and expression lightened, but remained concerned. "Does any of that ring a bell?"  
  
The man who was -- apparently -- named Jack swallowed and replied, "No. I don't remember anything before you were carrying me, just now." He was shivering now, with worry and after-the-fact adrenaline. "You said something about a warp drive cycling. I don't understand -- how am I still alive?"  
  
The spreading dismay that crossed the brown man's -- the Doctor's -- features was deep and disconcerting. He seemed momentarily at a complete loss. "Oh. Oh, dear. There must have been neural damage, some sort of scarring . . ." Before Jack could say anything, the Doctor continued, "You've said you've had scars that carry over sometimes, after you . . . " he stopped and took yet another step away from Jack, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Blimey, this is complicated. You're sure you don't remember anything?"  
  
"No. I know what I've got is retrograde amnesia, but I don't know how I know that." He huffed a bitter laugh, and tried not to be too disappointed at the new distance between them; though if what he suspected was true, maybe distance wasn't such a bad thing.  
  
"But is it? Retrograde amnesia, that is? Do you remember your early life, your childhood? That typically remains intact."  
  
Jack fumbled around the inside of his head, and found nothing. "Uh . . ."  
  
The Doctor was frowning again, but more thoughtfully than in dismay now. "I think, if you're willing, I should look for your memories -- I can do that, telepathically." The words were spoken with careful deference, though the Doctor's expression was anything but casual.  
  
Jack had the feeling the Doctor was being unusually restrained, but that impression was overwhelmed by the addition of another feature to the growing list in Jack's head. _Telepathic, cold, strong, two hearts, a ship bigger on the inside. He looks human but isn't, not at all . . ._  
  
"What are you?" he asked again, knowing the answer but refusing to believe it.  
  
The Doctor's chin lifted in a gesture part arrogance, part defiance. "I'm a Time Lord," he said, as if it were a common, everyday statement.  
  
Jack laughed, but not from amusement. "That's a myth. Time Lords are just a myth." He leaned back against the guard rail to steady himself. One of the people in the room was very likely insane and he feared that it was him.  
  
The Doctor's face went nearly blank, his young, almost-pretty features transformed into something ancient and daunting, like carven stone. _That's what grief looks like on him,_ one of the unpredictable flashes of knowledge whispered in the back of Jack's head.  
  
"Not _just_ a myth. Very few myths are _just_ anything," the Doctor said, his voice milder than the blackness in his eyes would suggest. "But my people have been gone so long, that's the only way they're remembered. I'm the last." He was silent for a moment, measuring the effect his words had on Jack. Then, with lightning speed his mood shifted and he was smiling pleasantly and reassuringly. "So, how about it? Shall I take a look-see and find out where your memories have gone?" He tapped his finger to his temple, in illustration.  
  
The gesture drew Jack's attention to the spare, bony grace of the other man's hand, and he swallowed, remembering the brush of those fingertips, the chill exhilaration of the kiss from moments before. He had a sudden and terrifying hunch that he would be willing to do almost anything this so-called Time Lord asked of him. _Yeah, if anyone's crazy here, it's me._  
  
Out loud he said, "Sure, might as well give it a shot. I don't think you can scramble my brains any worse than they already are." He added a casual shrug, trying to seem as offhand as possible and hoping it would cover the rising fear he felt, the sense of floundering in dark water, clueless and lost, no solid land to be seen.  
  
The sharp look the Doctor gave him seemed to go right through his bravado to the fear beneath, but the man ( _Time Lord_ ) merely nodded. "All right." With no further preamble, he stepped forward again, close enough to catch Jack's face between the fingertips of both hands. Their positions were almost exactly the same as they'd been during the kiss, but everything was different now, the Doctor's touch cool and dry and impersonal. Jack didn't have much time to reflect on that, though, since he immediately felt the pressure of another mind surrounding his.  
  
If the Doctor's ship was impressively larger on the inside, it had nothing on the Doctor's head. It was like having a galaxy knocking to be let in.  
  
A well-trained spinal reflex from the depths of Jack's unconscious prompted him to shape the surface layers of his thoughts into a door which he then opened, refusing to let himself think too hard about what he might be letting himself in for.  
  
The Doctor had closed his eyes, but his left eyebrow arched. "That's hopeful," he said, in a pleasant but detached voice. "You've definitely got access to your memory's contents on some level . . ." A pause, and Jack's mind chilled as a the vast, dark breeze of another mind entered it. "Now, I'll be looking for other doors, memory doors," the Doctor said, his physical voice jarringly prosaic in contrast to the psychic sensations he was causing. "But I will not be opening them -- you needn't fear anything of the sort. I just want to see how the access pathways are laid out . . ."  
  
He fell silent, and the shadowy rushing chill inside Jack's head increased, twisting, searching, stretching the comfortable borders of Jack's thoughts. He realized his breathing had gone short and shallow, almost panicky, and he evened it with a will. The idea of passing out while he was already forgetful and vulnerable was terrifying. What more might be lost when he was unconscious . . .?  
  
The Doctor's mind sensed his fear, and wrapped itself protectively around his thoughts, comforting. "Sh," the Doctor's outward voice told him. "I've got you . . . just a moment more . . ." His voice was low, human, warm and rough, in complete contrast to his mind.  
  
The sense of being wrapped in safety struck deep into Jack's consciousness, waking a trust and willingness to yield that he recognized as being out of character for himself, even on this short an acquaintance with the man he apparently was; still the impulse was irresistible, and he yielded to it completely. His muscles unclenched and his breathing opened out and relaxed. He found himself leaning against the Doctor both physically and mentally. The Doctor supported him effortlessly.  
  
"Oh, very good," the Doctor murmured, the faint burr or buzz in his voice becoming more pronounced. The affectionate praise in the Doctor's tone and thoughts nearly made Jack weak in the knees. "Hold just like that . . ." One more circuit, and the cool, encompassing darkness shifted, preparing to withdraw. _Not yet_ , Jack thought, a little desperately. _I want . . ._ there were no words for what he wanted -- or, rather, there were too many to fit comfortably in a single thought. Images were less unwieldy, and they flickered through his thoughts fast and furiously.  
  
Gently, with the restraint of great strength dealing with something more fragile than itself, the Doctor's mind detached itself from Jack's. Bereft, Jack opened his eyes (which he hadn't realized were closed), and looked into deep brown eyes that were nearly black -- though not with grief this time. The Doctor was attempting to look serious, but a sly smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth.  
  
"Still the same Jack," the Doctor said, nearly purring, and Jack's stomach knotted. He was suddenly, agonizingly, aware of their proximity, the cold-burning points of contact the Doctor's fingertips made on his face, and the rich honey-scent of the Doctor's skin, clearly discernible beneath the more ordinary fragrances of aftershave and hair gel.  
  
The Doctor's fingertips slipped from their positions and trailed down to Jack's neck, brushing the pulse points, seeking and stroking the vulnerable hollow and nape. Jack groaned shamelessly, beyond any notions of propriety and dignity. Abruptly, the Doctor's fingertips stopped moving and broke contact. The self-proclaimed Time Lord drew a deep, shaky breath, eyes dilated until the gold-shot brown of the irises was hardly visible. _I did that,_ Jack thought with smug pleasure. It all felt so very right . . .  
  
"That's enough of that," the Doctor said, entirely unconvincingly. "Still, it was informative. Your memory is all there, from what I can tell -- nothing lost. Just . . . the connections are broken. The trick will be to reestablish them, and I have to admit I'm at something of a loss, there." He was making an effort to regain some sort of professional distance, Jack could see it -- and it was the last thing Jack wanted.  
  
"Well, in the meantime," he volunteered, trying not to sound to breathy, "you could kiss me again. To, you know, pass the time."  
  
"Is that what you want?" the Doctor asked, with deep, wicked eyes that knew the truth even as he spoke.  
  
"Oh, yeah," Jack responded.  
  
The Doctor's gaze flickered down Jack's body and back up; his repressed smirk broke forth in its full glory. "I must say, your somatic memory is still working -- otherwise you wouldn't be reacting to me so strongly, if at all. Maybe the body's reflexes are the key -- stimulating them might re-open the other levels of connection . . ."  
  
"So what are we waiting for?" Jack nearly gasped, control worn to a thin thread.  
  
"Nothing," the Doctor admitted, drawing Jack in for another kiss that sent the world spinning.  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, but I was trying to write and post ASAP and decided to go with a natural "break" so I could get this section up. I originally planned to edit this version by moving bits of text around to even up the lengths of this chapter (short) and the next one (long), but when I re-read, the flow worked so nicely "as is" (at least by my own reckoning), I decided to leave it. But don't worry -- the last bit will be up soon enough! :D

The Doctor's kiss was engrossing enough, it took Jack a moment to realize the world was spinning in more ways than one. Then his balance shifted, and he had to lurch and catch at the guard rail, breaking contact with the Doctor in the process.  
  
"Jack!" The Doctor reached out to catch his arm, all the previous sensuality wiped completely out of his voice.  
  
"I'm okay," Jack said straightening. "I was just a little dizzy. That, or the ship moved . . ."  
  
"She's solid as a stone. Much as I'd like to be flattered . . ." The Doctor gripped Jack's shoulders to steady him and looked carefully into his eyes. "Hm." He let go of Jack's shoulders, and said, in the commanding tone of physicians everywhere, "Look at me. Right here." He tapped the tip of his nose with one finger. Confused, Jack complied. The Doctor watched him for a few seconds. "Now, look here . . ." the Doctor held up one finger to Jack's left. ". . . Now here." One finger to the right. "Now follow my finger as it moves across . . . and up and down . . . good." The Doctor was frowning. He stopped his hand slightly more than a foot from Jack's face. "Now touch your nose and my finger in sequence, several times, quick as you can."  
  
"I gotta say, this is unusual as far as foreplay goes," Jack said.  
  
"Please, I'm serious. Just concentrate."  
  
Jack complied. It took more focus than he expected, but he was able to manage the task accurately.  
  
The Doctor clicked his tongue. "A bit of ocular flutter, but nothing approaching out-and-out dysmetria. Still, I should have thought to check for global effects, beyond the memory problem. You have an amazing ability to get me thinking with organs besides my brain . . ."  
  
"I'll take that as a compliment." Jack almost sighed as he felt the moment slipping away from them. It was unfortunate -- without lust to distract him, the worry was back and starting to gnaw around the edges of his mind.  
  
"Oh, absolutely," the Doctor replied distractedly as he reached into an inner pocket of his suit jacket and brought out a small hand-held device. Jack got the impression that the gears of the Doctor's mind were spinning high speed beneath the composed surface.  
  
The device emitted an oscillating sonic hum and a bright blue light, which the Doctor waved from one side to the other in front of Jack's face -- checking the reflexes of his eye pupils, Jack realized.  
  
Whatever the Doctor saw reassured him, since he relaxed slightly. "Before we do anything else, we need to get you to the sickbay. I have no idea what the TARDIS will make of your system, but she should be able to get some basic readings - more than I can get with this." He held up the sonic device in illustration before slipping it back into his pocket.  
  
He was talking sense and Jack had to agree with him, disappointing as it might be. If it was one of my people, I'd say the same, he thought out of nowhere, but the sense of almost-memory dissolved into nothingness before he could pin it down. "If you think that's best. Lead on, MacDuff."  
  
The Doctor's eyes sharpened, laser keen, but all he said was, "If it's any consolation, the exam will get you a head start on taking your clothes off." His voice was superficially light, but it held layers that went way, way down.  
  
Jack looked into that complicated, almost-human face and was considerably cheered. "Let's do it, then."  
  
\---  
  
Whatever else he might be, the Doctor was definitely a doctor. He plied various instruments (some of which seemed familiar to Jack, some of which did not) with obvious skill and familiarity. The promised disrobing went no further than the removal of Jack's shirt, which continued the sequence of disappointment, though there were a few entertaining moments where the Doctor's fingertips brushed across Jack's bare skin. If the Doctor noticed the way Jack's nipples stood to attention afterward, he gave no sign.  
  
_I know this man,_ Jack thought, watching the Doctor's gangly-graceful dance around the sickbay. The reactions he felt were simply too strong for a chance acquaintance (and he knew, again without knowing how, that he was very familiar with that sort of situation as well). So odd, to be so certain but have no specific memories beyond a doomed spaceship less than an hour before . . .  
  
Jack suppressed a shiver. He decided to let the subliminal sense of trust overwhelm his worries. If there was a way to get his memories back, the Doctor would find it. Jack knew that -- better, he _believed_ it -- with his whole being.  
  
The last switch flicked, the final dial turned and the ultimate readout considered, the Doctor came to a halt before Jack and slipped his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet, frowning slightly.  
  
Jack sensed a Pronouncement in the making, and simply waited, relaxed, seated on the edge of an examination table.  
  
"I can't find anything specific, and neither can the TARDIS," the Doctor announced. "There are hints . . . but without a firm diagnosis, I'll have to say that you're at least in no immediate danger."  
  
"So," Jack said, and without his really willing it his hand drifted up and outward to toy with the Doctor's so-inviting silk tie. "Does that put us back at Plan A?" He smiled, and did his best to radiate charm and sex together. After all, if there was nothing urgent to deal with . . .  
  
The Doctor dropped his chin and looked at Jack over the rims of the spectacles he'd donned while working with the medical equipment. He smiled, and there was something so sly, so sensual in the expression it made Jack glad he was already sitting down. A fallen angel might smile that way, considering the temptation of an innocent soul.  
  
"I suppose that's as good an idea as any," he said, teasing.  
  
"So what are we waiting for?" Jack asked, giving a tug on the Doctor's tie to pull the Time Lord closer, between his knees.  
  
" _Absolutely_ nothing," the Doctor told him, dark and joyous.  
  
\---  
  
Unclothed, the Doctor revealed himself to be undoubtedly alien -- humanoid enough to wear a suit of Terran cut, but not much more. The layout of his thin, spare muscles and tendons was odd, and the glorious complexity of his lower abdomen and crotch left Jack feeling lost and uncertain.  
  
Lying flat on his back, with the Doctor arched teasingly above him on finger- and toe-tips, the chill of his body radiating towards Jack like the memory of winters past, Jack stared up into eyes so deep he could drown in them without leaving a ripple. "I . . . I don't remember how to do this," he admitted.  
  
"Don't worry," the Doctor replied; there were more levels to his voice then there had been, subtle harmonies working their way towards the surface. He flashed a madman's grin, all white teeth and certainty. "I remember enough for both of us."  
  
It wasn't hyperbole. He proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt, until Jack, driven beyond matters of thought or memory, found that his body knew a great many things his mind didn't recall learning.  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rather longer than previous chapters, but I doubt anyone will mind. :) This section took me much longer to write than I expected -- the concepts I wanted to articulate seemed simple enough in my head, but getting them wrangled into English was difficult. Hopefully the effort succeeded . . .

With fond amusement, Jack watched the Doctor watching him. They were lying nearly nose-to-nose, giving Jack a close-up view of the way the Doctor's eyes flickered back and forth, searching. It also gave him a great view of the subtle flutter of thick, dark lashes -- and an incongruous array of freckles. The freckles amused Jack greatly. Mythical creatures weren't supposed to have freckles.  
  
Then again, mythical creatures weren't supposed to shag like randy weasels, or to warm their chilly feet on human lovers. The Doctor had just done the former, and was currently doing the latter.  
  
"Still nothing?" the Doctor asked, sounding slightly disappointed. "I was hoping that would shake some memories loose . . ."  
  
"Shook a lot lot of things loose," Jack said, "but not my memory." At the moment, he really didn't give a damn, either.  
  
The Doctor sighed. "I was hoping the easy fix would be the one that worked," he said.  
  
"Is it ever?" Jack asked, with spinal-reflex cynicism.  
  
"Very, very, very rarely," the Doctor admitted. He looked so sad and worried -- in a puppy-ish fashion -- Jack had to chuckle.  
  
"Worth a try, though," he said, caressing the Doctor's (be-freckled) shoulder. The gesture was as natural as breathing, as was the way Jack was feeling now -- that wonderful, warm sense of hope and trust.  
  
"I _will_ get your memories back," the Doctor promised earnestly, brown eyes wide and honest.  
  
"'Course you will."  
  
"I'm the Doctor." The words were repeated like a talisman, a prayer; it struck Jack as odd. He didn't feel like the statement was directed at him, necessarily; more like a gesture of defiance towards the Universe at large.  
  
"'The man who makes people better,'" Jack said, knowing he was quoting without remembering the source.  
  
He meant it as reassurance, but there was a fraction of a second where the Doctor stiffened, his features freezing for a moment. Then the moment was past, though it left a hint of unease in its wake.  
  
"So I am," the Doctor said, his voice light and breezy, utterly human. It was the same voice that recently had shattered into impossible chords, crying out joy in a language at once alien and familiar.  
  
Then the fine-boned features went still and completely serious. The Doctor's dark eyes stared into his. The angle of the dim light was such that the gold in them was hidden, but Jack knew it was there. "Do you trust me?"  
  
"With my life," Jack said, the words speaking themselves with terrifying ease. Something in the pit of his stomach was floating, drifting, like the loss of gravity when one went into free-fall: flying for a moment, with the cruel ground still far away . . .  
  
_Gods, I'm in love with this man,_ Jack realized. _Not just from before,_ thinking of his past as if it were some distant country, _but here and now -- right at this moment._ It scared him, but he was apparently an old hand at covering his feelings, because he was reasonably sure he gave nothing away externally.  
  
The Doctor's eyes were nearly black again, but not with desire. "Then I have another idea."  
  
\---  
  
The door of the Doctor's timeship opened again, not onto the interior of a doomed spaceship but instead onto a beach.  
  
Jack, who had already given himself over to the impossible, simply accepted it.  
  
"We're here a good thousand years before any human settlements," the Doctor informed him, almost casually. Jack understood that this was a good thing, but he couldn't say why.  
  
The sand was golden, the sky turquoise, the rolling sea a faintly greener shade of the same. Jack inhaled, and the salt tang slammed into his senses like a physical blow . . .  
  
Except that the wave of association stopped dead after that initial familiarity. This was a place of deep significance, Jack knew it, but what significance remained elusive. It was like watching the shadows of fish flickering by in deep water, trying to catch them by their tails and failing completely.  
  
The Doctor was watching him closely. "Anything?" he asked.  
  
"Something," Jack admitted. "But nothing useful."  
  
The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck and looked down at the sand, his entire posture radiating tension and uncertainty.  
  
"It feels like it should be familiar," Jack said, trying to reassure the Doctor as well as himself. "That counts for something. Maybe we should wander around for a little bit. Maybe I just need to hit a certain trigger . . ."  
  
"Maybe," the Doctor admitted, glancing down the beach to a slight bend in the shoreline. Jack followed his gaze, and his stomach dropped, as if in a predictive reaction, though he found nothing in the view to be enlightening. The sea, sky, and sand were clear and empty -- though they shouldn't be. _A building, but more than that. It was, was. . ._  
  
Jack shook his head. More and more, he was getting a sense of foreboding, as if those flickering shadows of memory were dangerous predators, circling in at the scent of blood. _I trust him,_ he reminded himself. _He knows what he's doing._  
  
To keep from thinking too much, he began walking inland. The beach was bordered by a thick stand of broad-leafed resinous shrubs. Dried, their wood burnt a long, long time with a clear, bright light. The aromatic scent given off by the glossy leaves was unmistakable. There was a name for these shrubs, and he knew it . . .  
  
_Torchwood,_ his undermind whispered -- but that wasn't right, that was something else important in its own way . . . the thought flicked its tail and darted away before he could catch it. _Damn._  
  
There was a faint trail -- made by animals, though what kind he couldn't imagine -- winding through the scrub. He followed it and the Doctor followed him, as if handing over his role of guide. The narrow trail wound back and forth between the not-torchwood shrubs, then opened out into a grassy open area. It joined another trail running parallel to the shore. Flipping a mental coin, Jack turned right, keeping the sea to his right hand ( _if you go right, you can't go wrong . . ._ ), and followed the narrow trail through the grass. The hay-and-clover scent was, like everything else, maddeningly familiar.  
  
The trail slanted left, away from the sea, then continued along, mostly straight. Jack let his feet follow. Finally, after a quarter-mile or so he stopped, tense with frustration.  
  
"It's so close," he grated out. "I can almost feel it, then it gets away from me." He concentrated and only succeeded in making himself dizzy, now that he wasn't moving. That was another thing -- he still didn't know what had happened, back on that spaceship. The Doctor'd skated around things, never answering head-on any of Jack's questions about warp drives or possible brain damage or anything else.  
  
He shot a frustrated glance at the Doctor, who stood watching Jack. The Doctor's chin was slightly lifted, his hands in his pockets, eyes sharp and old and measuring.  
  
The Doctor cocked his head when Jack met his eyes, but didn't change expression in the slightest. It was a cold-blooded reaction ( _but then, his blood_ is _cold_ ), very different than the playful charm he'd exhibited in bed. For just a moment, Jack was uncertain, and that gave him another shiver of fear. The Doctor was his one stable point in a world gone strange; to doubt him was to doubt everything.  
  
Then the Doctor's shoulders slumped, and he looked like himself again -- irritated, and nearly as frustrated as Jack. "I was certain, I thought if any place could wake your memory it'd be here . . ." he began, then stopped. He looked out over the distant rim of earth, towards the open ocean and hazy sky. From the angle, it appeared they'd climbed quite a way above the water, though the rising slope hadn't been very apparent as they walked.  
  
"I guess it's time for a new plan B," the Doctor continued. Hands in pockets, as if deep in thought, he walked through the swishing grass, perpendicular to the path, towards the ocean.  
  
Jack could never call what happened next a premonition, exactly. It was just another flash of isolated knowledge drifting up from his subconscious.  
  
_Undercut, the ground along the shore tends to be undercut where the waves wash in at high tide. The animals know, there's a reason the path is inland, away from the beach. The edge is unstable, dangerous . . ._  
  
"Doctor!" Jack strode after the Time Lord and was already reaching for his elbow when the world lurched, and not from Jack's unstable neurons. Jack had a momentary glimpse of the Doctor looking back over his shoulder, spiky hair waving wildly in the breeze off the water, his eyes wide and brown and surprised. Then Jack's fingers closed over his arm and with a will Jack grabbed and twisted, using his own body as a pivot to bodily fling the Doctor away from the edge back towards solid ground.  
  
The Doctor might be stronger than he looked, but he wasn't heavier. Jack had the satisfying feeling of knowing he'd imparted a goodly _oomph!_ of momentum before the ground gave way beneath his feet. It was weirdly quiet -- just the distant sound of the breakers and a velcro-rip as grass roots parted. Jack twisted, trying to get into a good falling position, but his clumsy limbs and slowed reactions betrayed him. He was going to land badly, he could feel it.  
  
_He owes me one,_ was the cryptic thought that surfaced just before he hit the packed sand of the beach, head and shoulders first. He felt the crack, but the world went black before the pain could register.  
  
\----  
  
Memory flooded his brain as breath flooded his lungs and consciousness returned.  
  
_Deep in the TARDIS, Jack and the Doctor wrapped tightly around one another in the dim, otherworldly light. Low-voiced confessions, made in a private pocket of Time and Space, never to leave the room except in each others’ minds. Neither of them was prone to talk about such things — which might have been why it was possible to take such comfort from doing so, with the one other person who might have the faintest inkling of what was being revealed, and at what cost . . ._  
  
Jack heaved convulsively, rolling onto his back, the change in position allowing the last of his bones and muscles to shift into place again, the physical pain dull and distant compared to the clawing agony of memory restored. All of it back at once, hard and brutal, fueled by the familiar scents of salt water, seagrass and candlebrush.  
  
_Gray. Dad. Home._ Lost here on this shore, a thousand years in the future.  
  
He didn’t bother to rise, even when he heard the dull approaching thud of running footsteps and the familiar voice calling, “Jack!” Instead, he lay where he was and stared up into the turquoise-green sky, gritting his teeth while tears ran down his temples from the corners of his eyes.  
  
The footsteps slowed and stopped. The Doctor hunkered down next to him, elbows on knees, fingers loosely interlaced as he studied Jack with calm intensity. He made no move to touch or speak.  
  
“Why here?” Jack asked, without bothering to hide his tears or the thickness in his voice. “Of all the places to give me back my memory, why here?”  
  
“Because it held the strongest emotional associations for you that I’m aware of,” the Doctor told him, voice soft, soothing, almost bedside in its tone. He looked up and over Jack, towards the rolling breakers, squinting thoughtfully into the light. “My second choice would have been Satellite Five. I nearly took you there first, since those memories were more directly connected to me and I thought my presence might serve as a bridge, but in the end I decided that this would be most effective.”  
  
Jack closed his eyes and sniffed to clear his nasal passages while rubbing sandy fingertips across his face, trying to wipe away as much moisture as possible.  
  
“Have I ever told you you’re a complete bastard?” he asked — rhetorically, rather than from any gaps in memory.  
  
“Several times,” the Doctor replied evenly, neither denying nor attempting to defend. “I’m sorry.” The same old apology, sincerely meant, but too little and too late.  
  
Shading his eyes against the glare, Jack looked up into the Doctor’s face. Every line of the Doctor’s features was etched with sympathy and a deep, ruthless compassion that would do anything it deemed necessary to make someone — especially someone loved — better.  
  
“So answer me this. When just being here wasn’t working, did you walk out towards the edge of the bank deliberately?” Jack asked, meeting the Doctor’s eyes, refusing to look away.  
  
The Doctor’s mouth opened and closed as he processed the implication, disconcerted. “No,” he responded, finally. “That was completely unplanned.” His jaw firmed and tightened, and then he admitted, “Though if I’d thought of it, I might have filed the idea away for another plan B,” he paused, and continued, half-swallowing the words, “ . . . or C, or whatever.” His gaze flicked away from Jack's face, then back again. Jack could sense the effort that required.  
  
Jack covered his eyes with his hand again, aching inside. He remembered the dazzling, tempting illusion the Doctor presented at first: adventure, laughter, freedom, friendship, a dash of magic. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole story, either. It had taken Jack over a century to learn the truth the first time; repeating the process in the space of just under a day was grueling. The sense of betrayal was nearly as terrible as when Jack had realized he was truly alone on the Game Station.  
  
_He tried to use the worst day of my life as a tool, tried to use Gray. I trusted him; did he even stop to think how I would feel . . . ?_  
  
More memory, then, fresh and clear: a city street, light years and centuries away from Cardiff, the first side trip they’d taken together after Jack had told the Doctor the story of the day his childhood died.  
  
It was one of the quiet trips, no chaos or running or fighting, just the two of them kicking back, wandering through the place eyeing architecture and people and vehicles. Being tourists and nothing but, for once.  
  
They’d stopped to admire a particularly imposing building — a towering, elaborate confection of blued steel and smoky copper glass, buttressed like a cathedral and set with odd domes and spires. A few gargoyles wouldn’t have been out of place, but it was still impressively gaudy without them.  
  
For a few moments, they were companionably silent, standing shoulder to shoulder, the Doctor with his hands in his pockets, Jack with his thumbs hooked under his belt, craning their necks to see the faint flash of sunlight from dizzying height of the topmost spire.  
  
Then, out of nowhere, the Doctor had said conversationally, “I looked, you know.”  
  
“Huh?” Jack responded, distracted, looking from the spire to the Doctor.  
  
The Doctor had continued to squint upwards. “After what you told me last time. I went looking.”  
  
Understanding dawned, and Jack’s pulse skipped and stuttered. “For Gray? What did you find?”  
  
The Doctor’s brows drew down in a considering frown, and he replied, “Nothing.” He'd looked sidelong at Jack then, and his expression was difficult to read. “I couldn’t even get close. It was like things were Time-locked, or there was a paradox brewing. The TARDIS balked when I asked her to try punching through anyway, and I’ve learned to listen to her. I . . . still don’t understand.” The Doctor's jaw clenched, and Jack had read a profound disquiet beneath the composed surface. A Time Lord wasn’t used to encountering restrictions and barriers in his travel. “But I wanted you to know. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, too. Never know what might turn up.”  
  
Jack had swallowed down the bitterness of crushed hopes. Not the Doctor’s fault — after all, a certain AWOL Time Agent hadn’t had much luck searching, either. In all honesty, he was surprised to learn the Doctor had even tried. “Thanks. You didn’t have to,” he said.  
  
The Doctor had turned to contemplate the coppery tower once again. “No,” he said, distantly, “but I’ve lost my family, and I know what it feels like.” That had been the last they’d spoken of it.  
  
_He understands. He knew exactly what he was doing, and what it would do to me. But it was the straightest line between two points, by his reckoning.  
  
And he wouldn’t have tried it if he didn’t think I could take it.  
  
_Can _I?_  
  
The answer was unexpected but not really surprising. The Doctor applied kindness as the Master had applied cruelty -- always with an exquisite understanding of how far any subject might be pushed before breaking. Time Lords were excellent judges of material tolerances, in Jack’s experience.  
  
Jack breathed out in a long, slow exhalation, and dropped his hand from his eyes to the sand. He considered the summer Boeshane sky — that particular shade of turquoise he’d never encountered anywhere else in the Universe — and his own mental state. It still hurt (Gods, did it ever), but was the dull sort of hurt that would eventually blend into the background and heal up as much as such things ever did. Balancing the hurt were his memories — nearly two centuries of joy, sorrow, horror and laughter. Faces and places, voices and names. Only with them back did he realize how empty he’d been in their absence.  
  
He inhaled, and glanced at the Doctor, who remained hunkered down in the exact same pose, waiting with an old being’s alien, effortless stillness for whatever might come next. _He ran before, but he's not running now.  
  
I used to run, too, before I learned to hold my ground. Over a hundred and fifty years since I last saw this sky . . ._  
  
Looking into the Doctor's face, Jack was forcibly reminded of how it felt to stand at the edge of a graveyard watching Owen pelting towards him -- all taut, confused, agonized rage -- and how he'd steeled himself to take whatever was coming, because it was right and necessary and would define everything that happened next.  
  
If he decided to throw a punch, he knew the Doctor wouldn't duck.  
  
The Doctor blinked, analyzing and evaluating. Silently, he offered Jack a hand. Jack took it and let the Doctor help him to his feet. The Doctor's grip was firm and cool, offering gentle assistance with effortless steel underneath. There was no more dizziness or clumsiness when Jack stood upright. All the neural damage had been fixed this time out, it seemed; scars tended to fade with successive bouts of resurrection.  
  
Jack shook himself. Sand sifted down off the back his greatcoat . . . and down the inside of his collar as well. He grimaced. “The TARDIS isn’t gonna like all this sand. I’ll be sure to tell her it’s your fault.”  
  
The corners of the Doctor’s eyes crinkled with amusement, though his mouth stayed serious. “I’m sure she’ll take the word of a former con artist as purest gospel.”  
  
From this angle, Jack could see the impressive collapse of the embankment — a gaping semicircle, ragged with shredded grass roots. He could also see the cut in the overhang where the Doctor must have made his way down to the beach.  
  
“Yeah, she will. She likes me, remember?” Jack shot back, ruffling his hair to get the worst of the grit out. He began walking in the direction of the cut.  
  
“Yes. Yes, I do,” the Doctor replied, falling into step with him.  



End file.
